Min-Zhan Lu’s language and words

Communication is a complex process that every individual faces on a daily basis, whether is verbal or non-verbal. Visual and audio-based communications are imperative when words can’t be the adeguate medium between two people or among a group of people. No matter the type of communication, challenges are present in any situation and it is important to find a way to navigate them. With her experience, Min-Zhan Lu’s language and words provide a insightful point of view on how communication should be talked about.

Being born and raised in China during the 1950s, Min-Zhan Lu has lived a conflict between the education she would get at home and the one she would be instructed at school. Her homeschooled teaching was all in English, due to her family’s choice. Outside her domestic space, she would interact in Chinese, engaging different discourses and philosophies with her classmates and professors. “In literature and political philosophy classes, we were taught a large number of quotations from Marx, Lenin, and Mao Tse-tung. Each concept that appeared in these quotations came with a definition. We were required to memorize the definitions of the words along with the quotations“(p.441, from Silence to Words: Writing As Struggle).

While learning both English and Chinese, Min-Zhan would associate and interpret words differently according to the setting she was in. Her balance was constantly measured by the readings she would do. “As school began to define me as a political subject, my parents tried to build up my resistance to the “communist poisoning” by exposing me to the “great books”-novels by Charles Dickens, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Emily Bronte, Jane Austen, …” she recalls (p.441) when she remembers about her duality in living between two languages.

As we could expect, her marvel and confusing in knowing how to use her words has been challenging while growing up. The more suspicious I became about the way I read and wrote, the more guilty I felt for losing the spontaneity with which I had learned to “use” these “languages.” (p. 443). However, she managed to understand the contexts and their differences: this served her as a self-confidence tool, because she was given the choice to comprehend two types of communications, which allowed her to be more open-minded and flexible in working in both settings, with less guilt and fear of expressing herself.

Min-Zhan Lu has entered in the academia as a college writing teacher in the Unites States. She also has a family, with a husband and a daughter, who has learned both English and Chinese. She observes how her child is navigating the indoor and outdoor environments and she shares her concerns in how educators should be mindful about the struggles that communication can arise in a student’s learning process. “We might encourage students to explore ways of practicing the conventions of the discourse they are learning by negotiating through these conflicting voices. We could also encourage them to see themselves as responsible for forming or transforming as well as preserving the discourse they are learning” (p. 447)

On a personal level, I’ve found other types of struggles in my types of communication. Despite the differences of time, place, and purpose, I see a resemblance in how Min-Zhan Lu and I try to ponder and evaluate the best methods to communicate with other people.